From Java to C#: A Developer's Guide

13.2. C# exception hierarchy

Like Java, all exception classes are subclasses of one special exception class. ^[8] In Java, it is java.lang.Exception; ^[9] in C# the grandfather of all exception classes is System.Exception.

^[8] C++ developers will find this a new idea. In C++, anything can be an exception – there is no rule to say that exceptions must be instances of any special class.

^[9] Which is in turn a direct subclass of java.lang.Throwable. For Java, Throwable is a direct subclass of java.lang.Object. From Throwable, we have java.lang.Error and java.lang.Exception. C# does not differentiate between exceptions and errors.

Figure 13.4 shows some significant predefined exception classes in C#.

Figure 13.4. System.Object and some C# exception classes. ...